Combat

Combat

Turn-Based Combat Flow

Combat in Ash & Light is primarily sequential. Actions resolve in a clear order, allowing situations to be read, assessed, and responded to deliberately rather than through reflex. Time advances in discernible steps, giving weight to each decision and making the cost of mistakes legible.

While the structure is sequential, combat is not inert. Actions can carry consequences that unfold beyond the moment they are chosen. Effects may persist, conditions may escalate, and outcomes can ripple forward even when a character is not actively acting. Time is ordered, but pressure is continuous.

Active Party Size

Combat allows up to four active participants at a time. This limit defines the scale at which encounters are designed and decisions are tested.

Fighting with fewer than four is both possible and, in some situations, may be intentional. The system does not assume ideal conditions or perfect coverage. Encounters respond to who is present, not to what is missing, and capability is measured by how well the active group can meet the demands placed upon it.

Encounter Structure

Most encounters are not sealed arenas. They are situations that arise within the world and remain connected to it.

A confrontation may escalate, attract attention, or persist beyond its initial exchange. Reinforcements can arrive. Conditions can worsen. The environment itself may continue to exert pressure even after a decisive moment has passed. Combat has a recognizable beginning, but its consequences are not always neatly contained.

Puzzle-Like Encounters and Late-Game Specificity

As the game progresses, encounters increasingly demand specific responses. Some situations cannot be resolved through raw power, repetition, or numerical advantage alone.

Certain late-game encounters are effectively unsolvable without the right forms of preparation, tolerance, or disruption. These are not tests of endurance in isolation, but assessments of understanding. Success comes from recognizing what a situation requires and assembling a group capable of meeting that requirement. When those requirements are not met, persistence alone is insufficient.

Retreat, Failure, and Consequences

Retreat is a valid and expected outcome of combat. It may be strategic, necessary, or simply the only honest response to an unfolding situation.

Failure does not erase the encounter. It does not reset the world to a prior state or reduce the outcome to a simple loss of resources. Instead, it reshapes what follows. Relationships may strain or break. Opportunities can close or shift. Threats persist, evolve, or spread. Combat teaches not through correction, but through consequence.

Victory is not defined by standing your ground, but by knowing when to press forward, when to withdraw, and what the world will remember afterward.